Gabriel Bethlen

Gabriel Bethlen (15 November 1580-25 November 1629), also known as Bethlen Gabor, was Prince of Transylvania from October 1613 to 15 November 1629 (succeeding Gabriel Bathory and preceding Catherine of Brandenburg) and King of Hungary from 25 August 1620 to 31 December 1621 (succeeding Matthias II and preceding Ferdinand II).

Biography
Gabriel Bethlen was born in Marosillye, Transylvania (present-day Ilia, Romania) on 15 November 1580, the son of the Hungarian nobleman Bethlen. He was raised by his kinsman Stephen Bocskai, and his first battle was the 1595 Battle of Giurgiu in Wallachia. In 1599, he was wounded at the Battle of Sellenberk, during which he fought for Andrew Bathory against Prince Michael the Brave of Wallachia. He later joined the Transylvanian rebellion against the Holy Roman general Giorgio Basta, whose unpaid mercenaries, along with the Ottomans and the Crimean Tatars, had regularly pillaged Transylvania from 1599 to 1602. In 1603, Gabriel served as one of Moses Szekely's generals, and, when the Wallachian prince Radu Serban destroyed Szekely's army at Barcarozsnyo on 17 July 1603 and killed Szekely in battle, Gabriel fled to the Ottoman Empire, where he became the leader of the Transylvanian refugee community. In 1605, Bocskai was elected Prince of Transylvania with Szekely and noble support, and Gabriel supported Bocskai and his successor Gabriel Bathory before falling out with Bathory and again fleeing to the Turks. After Bathory's murder in 1613, the Ottomans installed Gabriel as Prince of Transylvania, and he pursued enlightened absolutism. He was a patron of the arts and of the Calvinist church, and, from 1619 to 1626, in alliance with the Protestant Bohemians during the Thirty Years' War, he launched an insurrection against the Holy Roman Empire. On 20 August 1620, after capturing Pressburg (Bratislava), he was elected King of Hungary, but he was unable to take Vienna, being forced to withdraw when the invading Polish threatened to cut off his supply lines after the Battle of Humenne. On 31 December 1621, Gabriel renounced his royal title on the condition that Hungarian Protestants were granted religious freedom. From 1623 to 1624 and in 1626, he campaigned against Emperor Ferdinand II of Germany in upper Hungary. He died in 1619, and his wife Catherine of Brandenburg became Princess of Transylvania.